


Nor Iron Bars a Cage

by imaginary_golux



Category: Cadfael Chronicles - Ellis Peters
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Five years after the events ofThe Virgin in the Ice,Olivier is taken captive. Yves vows to rescue the man he secretly loves or die trying.Beta by myverypatient Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	Nor Iron Bars a Cage

Yves is just turned eighteen when they get the news - eighteen, and a man grown, in his own eyes if not his sister's, quick and daring and sure-footed, as like his hero as he can mold himself to be. He has not Olivier's seeming-endless well of calm, nor yet all of the older knight's Saracen tricks with a blade, but nonetheless he is well-grown and well skilled, as all agree, even his uncle - even Olivier.

Olivier, who is off on an errand when Yves finally reaches a man's wealth of years. Olivier, from whom comes word at last, long after Yves and Ermina have each begun to fret. Olivier, who is captured, held for a ransom even a great lord might balk to pay.

Their uncle reads the letter with a grim face, but Yves can see the little hint, beneath the genuine sorrow at the loss of so good a liegeman, that their uncle is - not glad, no, but perhaps relieved, and Yves knows why. There is no way that Uncle can pay such a ransom, even if he beggared his own estates and Yves' alike, and so Olivier must languish in his cell; and while he does, Ermina cannot press and beg and wheedle and cajole and demand to be allowed to marry him. Their uncle has hoped, these five years now, that Ermina's adoration of the landless Olivier might fade, that she might choose another match, one better suited to her rank and station, one with lands and wealth and title to his name, but Yves could have told him what a fool's hope that was. Once she has set her mind to a thing, Ermina does not balk nor turn aside, and she has set her mind - aye, and her heart too - on Olivier de Bretagne.

As has Yves, for all that he has never told a living soul. But how should he _not_ love Olivier with all he is? From the very moment they met, their eyes greeting each other in perfect understanding across an icy tower roof, they have been so closely joined in mind as if they were but two halves of the one soul, sometimes ending each other's sentences, often not even needing to speak, for all was understood without a single word exchanged. And such a meeting! Yves has owed Olivier his life since that first hour, and has striven always to repay that debt by becoming such a knight that Olivier might be proud of - might call his friend and brother with a glad heart, and claim Yves as his own kin as proudly as Yves would claim him.

But in the dark hours when there is no one to hear but God, Yves has wished to be something more even than a brother and a friend to Olivier, to clasp him close not in the bluff affection of men at war but in the sweet passion which is utterly forbidden for them to share. Oh, Yves has met women enough who stir his blood, even a few he has found himself willing, should his uncle so decree, to wed and bed and live his life beside, but none of them is so fierce and clever, so skilled and devoted, so kind and courageous as Olivier. No one in the wide world could be so, Yves is quite sure. But he has never spoken his heart, has kept his true desires so well concealed that he would swear even before God Himself that no one - not even Olivier, who knows him best of all men - could have guessed them.

Yet it is that passion, that unnamed and devouring love, and not his affection for his sister, though that is what he feigns, which sends him against his uncle's will on a mad, reckless quest to wrest Olivier from durance vile.

One man alone against a keep is madness indeed, and yet Olivier did the same, five years ago - aye, and won free, too, and Yves safe at his side. To be sure, there _was_ a small army to distract the enemy, and even then the escape was a nearer thing than Yves, looking back on it with a man's wisdom and not a boy's awe, cares to contemplate, but all the same, it _did_ work. Yves will manage it again, or die in attempt, and Ermina's son, someday when she has wed, may hold their father's lands.

It is a mad hope, and a foolish one, but even mad and foolish as he may be, Yves is not lost to all cunning. He knows that many a battle has been lost for want of good intelligence, and so when he reaches the keep that holds Olivier within its walls, he does not ride to the gates to challenge the lord, nor mount a reckless assault upon the walls, but stables his horse at an abbey some two hours' swift walk away, and dons rough homespun garments as any forester might wear - remembering always how easily Alain de Gaucher knew him for a noble by his rich garments and the silver on his dagger's hilt - and goes afoot to scout the land about the keep. He notes the guards upon the walls, the timing of their rounds, the villeins who bring their produce to the gate each morning, and from the tallest trees nearby he spies to make himself a map of the grounds within the keep's high walls. Olivier is not visible at any time of the day, which almost certainly means he’s being kept in whatever dungeons the keep has, and Yves will need some way to pass unobserved in the halls for long enough to find him.

The fourth day of his solitary vigil gives him the first true chance he’s seen, and Yves makes shift to seize upon it at once. The villeins bring far more food to the gate than they have before, and the servants who come to claim it have something of a festival air about them. The guards, too, seem jovial and merry, and as Yves watches, around dinner-time nearly half of them go trailing down into the keep, laughing and joking, and a pair of villeins with pitchers of what Yves suspects is spiced wine come up to give drinks to the remaining guards so that they will not grieve their duties too sharply.

And then, Yves sees with sudden bright excitement, they cluster near each other, talking and laughing, and leave one whole side of the wall empty and unobserved.

The thought is parent to the deed, and Yves is out of his tree and over the wall, unseen and unheard, and crouching in the shrubbery unobserved, by the time one of the truant guards remembers his duty and goes wandering desultorily along the walltop. It is simple enough for Yves to slip along the wall, well under cover of the trees and shrubs, until he reaches the woodpile; and from there, simplicity itself for him to scoop up a few small logs and walk unhurriedly into the kitchen.

The kitchen is, as Yves suspected, bustling and over-busy, and he puts his wood down in the waiting pile, snatches up a pitcher of spiced wine, and slips unobserved out through the inner door, hurrying with his head down until he finds a cross-corridor and can turn away from the noise of the celebration and find his way, wary and cautious, down slowly through the keep to the dungeons.

There is one old and rather grumpy guard upon the dungeons, who looks up scowling when Yves enters the antechamber. “Brought ye some wine, sor,” Yves says, trying hard to sound like the sort of villein who might have been sent on so menial a task, and the guard grunts and takes the pitcher from him eagerly.

Yves slips back out into the stairway, well out of sight of the guard, and waits, and is rewarded by the sound of the pitcher gurgling as it is poured, the guard swallowing, the cup clattering as it is set down - once, twice, again. It is good strong wine, from the sip Yves took along the way, and three cups of it, on an empty stomach -

Yes. A quiet thump, as of a man setting down his head upon his folded arms, as though in prayer - and then, blessed be all the saints, a _snore_.

Yves slips back into the antechamber to find the guard asleep upon his folded arms, the pitcher nearly empty beside him. The keys hang on the wall, and Yves lifts them down as silently as he can, one hand tight around them to prevent clinking, and hastens down the hall, glancing into each cell as he passes. Most are empty, and Yves finds his steps quickening. What if Olivier is not here? What if they have held him in some other part of the keep - or if he has given his parole, as a man may with all honor, and is even now within the great hall, celebrating whatever festival has given Yves this opportunity?

But the last door in the hallway is closed and tightly locked, and Yves peers in to see, stretched on the thin pallet, a form as familiar as his own. “Olivier!” he hisses, and Olivier is on his feet at once and crowding close to the bars.

“My heart, how are you here?” he breathes. “What, and the very keys in your hand - my bold gallant!”

Yves feels his cheeks glowing at the praise, and hastens to bend his head and unlock the door, gritting his teeth at the slow creak of unoiled hinges that even all his caution cannot quite prevent. Still the steady snoring from the antechamber does not cease, and Olivier steps out into the corridor and catches Yves in a tight, grateful embrace.

“Come, I do not know how long your gaoler will sleep,” Yves murmurs. “When we reach the common corridors, do you feign illness - a surfeit of wine - and keep your head against my shoulder, and with God’s grace we will slip through unnoticed.”

“Even shall I do,” Olivier replies, and follows at Yves’ heels as Yves slips past the still-snoring guard, up the stairs and into the corridors, leaving the keys again upon their hook. Yves sends a fervent prayer up to heaven, and draws Olivier close - he is still shorter than the older man, by perhaps a hand’s breadth, but broader by far, grown into the promise of his youthful stockiness - as they make their way towards the outer doors. Olivier’s breath is warm upon his neck.

They are nearly out - Yves can see the outer courtyard through the open doors, dimly lit as dusk falls over the countryside - when a door opens behind them, releasing a burst of laughter and a cluster of half-drunk guards. Yves backs up against the corridor wall, Olivier’s face tucked against his throat, and keeps his head subserviently lowered as the guards pass by. One of them guffaws, crying, “A little too much wine for you, friend?” and clapping Olivier firmly on the shoulder. Olivier groans as if ill, staggering harder against Yves’ firm hold, and the guards laugh even more loudly and go on their way without appearing to notice that the ill reveler is their escaped prisoner in truth.

Yves waits until the guards have passed before he ushers Olivier out into the courtyard, and the growing dimness of the hour gives them sufficient cover to slip again behind the shrubbery and make their way to a tall tree which Yves had marked earlier as being an easy way to scale the wall.

There is a pair of guards leaning on the merlons above their hiding place, laughing over some private joke or other, and Yves and Olivier huddle deeper into the shadows, waiting for them to move. They show no inclination to do so until at last another villein emerges from the kitchens and climbs to the walltop, bearing a basket of food in her arms. The guards leave their comfortable perch at once, all of them converging upon the poor lass, and Yves and Olivier are up the tree and over the wall as swift as cloud-shadows across the moon.

“My horse is two hours hence and more,” Yves breathes in Olivier’s ear as they slip under the concealing shadows of the forest. “Can you walk so far?”

“An I must, I will,” Olivier swears, but they have only made perhaps an hour’s progress before he begins to stumble in the darkness. Poor food and too-long inactivity have taken their toll on his usual vitality and strength.

“It will do us no good for you to dash your head against a tree,” Yves says quietly, and draws his companion down into the shelter of a tall stone outcrop. It is a balmy summer night, and the rough villein’s cloak Yves is wearing will suffice them both for a covering well enough. “Come, rest a while, and I have a little bread and cheese, and watered wine. When there is light we will go on.”

“Even as you say,” Olivier says, and eats the bread and cheese and drinks a long draught of wine gratefully before dozing off against Yves’ shoulder, a warm and pleasant weight. Yves arranges the cloak more comfortably over them and prepares himself to spend the night awake, listening for pursuit. If God and the saints are kind, their escape will not be discovered for many hours, and Olivier’s captors will spend yet more time searching the whole keep before they set out to scour the woodlands.

Olivier’s breath is warm on Yves’ throat, and his arm is a heavy band across Yves’ chest. Yves shifts a little to draw Olivier closer and closes his eyes for a moment, wishing desperately that he could bend his head to brush a kiss to that beloved face, brush that soft hair from Olivier’s forehead and trace a finger along those high cheekbones, that elegant beak of a nose. It is a sin, he knows, to desire Olivier so - a sin even Brother Cadfael might find hard to forgive - but Yves finds it hard to truly believe that his wish to cherish Olivier, to please him and delight him, to make him glad, could be so far from God’s grace. But if this is all Yves will ever have, this quiet night deep in the forest with Olivier asleep so sweetly in his arms, then Yves will cherish this moment, these scant hours of darkness and peace, for all his days.

It is very late, well past Matins, perhaps nearly Lauds, when Olivier stirs a little and turns his face up into the faint moonlight, amber eyes still closed, and brushes a kiss against Yves’ cheek. Yves goes very still against the temptation to turn his head and meet Olivier’s lips with his own. Surely Olivier does not know what he does; still hazed with sleep, he doubtless thinks he holds another in his embrace. Yves will not so dishonor them both as to take the affection meant for another.

“Olivier, wake,” he murmurs instead, low and quiet. Olivier opens his eyes, unreadable in the darkness, and looks up at Yves for a long moment.

“My gallant,” he murmurs at last. “Have you sat the watch all this while?”

“It was no hardship,” Yves replies. “You may sleep a little longer; it is some hours yet until dawn.”

“I am not so weary as I was; I can take the watch, if you wish to sleep,” Olivier says, though he makes no move to sit up, his head a welcome weight against Yves’ shoulder.

Yves stifles a laugh, shoulders shaking though he makes no sound. “Ah, listen to us, Olivier, each eager to lift the other’s burden,” he says softly. “But truly, I am not weary; sleep if you desire.”

“Shall we argue over who is wearier?” Olivier asks, amused. “Truly, I have slept enough; but if you do not wish to sleep in your turn, tell me, I pray you, how it comes you are here alone to rescue me. For surely your uncle did not give you leave to come thus rashly into danger.”

“Indeed he did not,” Yves says, feeling himself flush and blessing the darkness that conceals it. “The ransom your captors asked was far too high to pay, though gladly I would have beggared myself if it had been possible to secure your freedom, and I - I could not bear to think of you, held in prison and awaiting a ransom never to be paid.” Flushing harder, he adds rather belatedly, “No more could Ermina, and it is with her aid and encouragement that I was able to slip away.”

“God’s blessings on you both, then,” Olivier says softly. “I had begun to suspect they had asked a ransom far beyond my deserts, though I cannot imagine why they thought it so desperately important to keep me imprisoned; I am hardly the only sword your uncle may command.”

“You are the finest,” Yves says stoutly. Olivier chuckles quietly.

“I would not go so far, myself,” he says, and settles a little closer to Yves. Yves knows it is only that the night has grown a little chill, that the cloak is not so wide as to let them lie side by side beneath it without embracing, but Olivier’s broad hand is a searing warmth against his side through the rough tunic, and his head is heavy on Yves’ shoulder. Yves’ arm is wrapped securely around Olivier’s shoulders, holding him close, and he never wants to let go. Olivier takes a deep, slow breath, as though gathering himself for some great exertion, and says slowly, “My gallant, was it only for Ermina’s sake you came for me?”

“No,” Yves says quietly. “Did she not adore you, still I would have come, for you are - you are very dear to me, Olivier. Dearer than any other in the world.” He wishes to take back the words as soon as they fall from his lips, for surely that is a confession of those desires he has sworn never to inflict upon his friend - and indeed Olivier’s breath comes suddenly short, as though he has been struck, but he does not loosen his hold on Yves, nor pull away from their embrace.

“God help me,” Olivier murmurs, so soft Yves can barely hear him. “I know - oh, my gallant, I know you cannot mean - God forgive me,” he finishes almost desperately, and before Yves knows quite what is happening, Olivier has pushed himself up on one strong arm and pressed his lips to Yves’.

Yves is too startled to do more than stare at his companion, and Olivier sits up, the sudden loss of his warmth against Yves’ side almost painful in its abruptness, and buries his face in his hands. “God forgive me,” he says again, muffled but clear, and Yves gathers his wits with a great effort and leans forward to place a hand on Olivier’s bent back.

“Olivier,” he says quietly, and then, daring finally to speak the words he has been holding back for so long, “Olivier, my heart, look at me.”

Olivier raises his head, amber eyes glinting in the moonlight, and even if they have each managed to conceal this from the other, still they know each other so well that only those few words are enough to reveal all. “Yves, my gallant,” he says, voice full of wonder. “Have we each borne this in silence, then?”

“Since perhaps the moment we first met,” Yves admits. “You were all that was bright and good in the world, and I - how could I help but adore you? At first it was but the adoration of a boy for his hero, I will admit, but as I grew to be a man, so too did that affection grow, and now - well. You are as dear to me as my own breath and blood.”

“So long,” Olivier marvels, “and I all unknowing!”

“And - your own affections?” Yves dares to ask, very shyly.

“But these last two years,” Olivier says. “Do you recall, my gallant, the day you first bested me with a sword? You were so very proud of your skill, and yet still turned first of all to ask if I had taken any hurt of your blows.” The day is carved in Yves’ memory, limned in pride and bright with remembered sunlight. “I see you do recall,” Olivier says, lips curving in a gentle smile. “It was then I first knew you were a man grown, one I could be proud to fight beside, and not a child to shield from the dangers of the world. And as you are my dearest friend, and I have loved you dearly since first we met, how then should that love not become -” he breaks off helplessly and shrugs, ungraceful for once, hands spread as though to grasp at some shred of explanation.

“I have not bested you often since that day,” Yves says, unable to find more fitting words.

“And yet it could be said you have bested me entirely,” Olivier says, reaching out across the scant space between them, and Yves takes his hand at once, twining their fingers together tightly.

“Surely,” Yves says, his mouth quite dry with joyful apprehension, “it is you who have bested me.” He drops his eyes to stare at their twined fingers, olive skin and tan nearly the same shade in the dim moonlight.

Yves hears Olivier swallow, and then, softly, speak words that must be engraved on his memory as they are on Yves’. “Look up, my heart,” Olivier says, “and show me that gallant face again. Let me look at my prize!”

Yves raises his eyes to meet Olivier’s, and sees shining in those golden eyes what he has never dared to dream might be his. Olivier pulls, gently, at their twined hands, and Yves follows that gentle persuasion easily, leaning forward across the narrow space between them. Olivier’s lips are warm and soft against his, and were it not for the chill of the ground beneath him, Yves would think this a dream indeed.

“Let all else wait the morrow,” Olivier says softly as their lips part again. “I would spend the rest of this night with you in my arms, and count those hours such wealth as all the gold in England could not match. If - if you would not object -”

“With all my heart I desire the same,” Yves says at once, and Olivier breathes a laugh and pulls Yves into his arms, unbalancing them so that they both fall to the ground entangled in the cloak, Yves half atop the older man.

“I am not too heavy?” he asks, gasping, and Olivier cups his face in his hands and kisses him sweetly.

“You would not be too heavy were you thrice your weight, my gallant,” he says fondly. “Do not fret; I am no fragile maiden.”

“No,” Yves agrees, marveling anew that somehow his most secret dreams have come so joyfully true. “You are the finest swordsman I have ever met, and so valiant a warrior that any man might be honored to fight beside you, and added to this in all ways honorable and valorous.”

“And _you_ are grown silver-tongued,” Olivier says. “My bold gallant, hush and kiss me; you need not woo. I am already won.”

“It is not wooing, but plain truth,” Yves says, and bends his head obediently to meet Olivier’s lips again.

By slow degrees they move in harmony until they lie each on their sides, with the cloak spread over them and their arms about each other, and Yves clasps Olivier close and joys in the tightness of Olivier’s arms about him in turn. If he should never have another night like this, at least he _has_ had this, has held Olivier close and felt Olivier’s breath warm against his throat, Olivier’s lips hot against his own. Yves gives in to an impulse he has long suppressed and lifts one hand to stroke Olivier’s hair, finding it as fine and soft beneath his hand as he has always dreamed it would be. Olivier makes a quiet sound much like that of a contented cat, his eyes falling closed as he leans into the caress.

“My gallant,” he murmurs, and Yves thinks that he shall never need another endearment in all his days, for those words in that beloved voice are far dearer to him than any flattery or sweet name might be from any other mouth.

“My heart,” he replies, pouring all his devotion into the simple words, and Olivier sighs and presses close for another kiss, and so they pass the remaining hours of darkness in each other’s arms, their bliss too deep for further words.

As dawn begins at last to brighten the sky, Yves rises to his feet, drawing Olivier up with him, and in companionable silence they make their way through the rising birdsong until they come at last to the abbey’s walls. The porter is surprised to see them, but makes no particular objection to Yves reclaiming his horse even at this unlikely hour. Yves did not bring his charger, a present from his uncle upon the occasion of his coming of age, but instead a sturdy, even-tempered gelding which can carry two men without distress, and which greets him with an eager whinny, glad to be given at last a task worthy of its strength. One of the brothers brings out bread and meat wrapped in a bit of clean cloth, and Yves refills his flask with good clear water from the well.

“Do you mount first, and I shall ride behind you,” he says to Olivier, who laughs brightly.

“Well do I recall when you were small enough to ride before,” he says merrily, and mounts easily to the gelding’s back. Yves takes his own seat, and Olivier gathers the reins, clucking softly to coax the horse to motion. Yves winds his arms around Olivier’s slim waist and rests his head on the older man’s shoulder, comforted by the steady beat of Olivier’s heart.

“Come, let us away,” Olivier says softly. “And as we ride you may think on what you will tell your uncle, my gallant, to explain your reckless quest.”

“I shall tell him it was done for honor and for love,” Yves says firmly, “for so it was. It is no part of honor to leave a comrade languishing in a dungeon, and if my uncle thinks I have done this out of my love for my sister, well - he may think as he pleases. We two shall know the truth.”

“So we shall,” Olivier agrees, and covers Yves’ clasped hands with one of his own, warm and strong. “So we shall, my gallant, and that, at least, no man can take from us.” And as the road turns, so that they are shielded from all eyes by the trees around them, he turns his head to press his lips to Yves’ again. “So let us cherish that truth, and each other,” he continues softly, golden eyes bright with the rising sun.

“So let us do, my heart,” Yves agrees, and clasps his beloved a little more tightly as they ride towards sanctuary and the many golden days to come.

**Author's Note:**

> So I haven't read any farther in the series than _The Virgin in the Ice,_ and I'm reasonably sure Olivier and Ermina are going to end up married, but here are the quotes which caused me to write this fic:
> 
> The faint starlight caught the gleam of white teeth, and bright eyes that shone like amber. The capuchon had fallen back from ruffled black hair that did not curl, but curved and clasped in a thick cap about a shapely, vigorous head. Every line and every movement cried out his youth and audacity. Yves gazed and lost his heart.
> 
> and then, some pages later:
> 
> "Look up, my heart,” said the voice at the other end of the ladder, almost gaily, “and show me that gallant face again, bruises, grime and all. Let me look at my prize!”
> 
> Yves lifted his head from his arms and stared dazedly along the ladder into bright, gold-gleaming eyes and an indulgent, glittering smile. A young, oval face under that thick, close cap of black hair, high-cheekboned, thin-black-browed, long-lipped, and with a lean, arrogant beak of a nose, like a scimitar. Smooth-shaven as a Norman, smooth-skinned as a girl, but of an olive, glossy smoothness.
> 
>  
> 
> ...I'm imaginarygolux on tumblr; please feel free to come say hi!


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